The Google data APIs ("GData" for short) provide a simple standard protocol for reading and writing data on the web. GData combines common XML-based syndication formats (Atom and RSS) with a feed-publishing system based on the Atom publishing protocol, plus some extensions for handling queries.
After reading Jeremy Zawodny's posts on Google's GData, MySQL, and the Future of on-line Databases, I pretty much agree with him. With the ongoing battle of the SQL and MySQL camps out there, it gets pretty tiring and sooner or later, you'll need to find one comprehensive API that can put your software or service on the Web easily. If GDATA can make the process of a query, update, and index structured data on the web easy, then I'm behind Google. But I hope to the heavens that they don't turn into a big bully like Microsoft.
It just so happened that I re-listened to his talk a several weeks ago during a walk to the bank. Hearing it for the second time, I was much more receptive to his ideas about creating a simple and open replacement for all the proprietary communications protocols currently in use by database vendors. By using HTTP and RSS or Atom, one could get 80% of the needed functionality while also greatly simplifying how things work. The benefit is that you'd have a single API that could be used to query, update, and index structured data on the web--anywhere on the web. It's a pretty powerful vision and something I didn't expect to see for a couple more years.
GData is the Ultimate single Database API source
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